Artist Birender Yadav sculpts quiet struggle of kiln workers at Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Kochi, Jan 2 (PTI) In artist Birender Yadav's showcase at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale about the brick kiln workers of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, the absence of the nameless, faceless workers makes the installation all the more poignant, sharing the story of their unsung struggle from generation to generation.

Yadav’s “Only the Earth Knows Their Labour” at the Aspinwall House reconstructs the atmosphere and structure of a kiln, without the workers. The imprint of the workers and their labour remains visible in Yadav’s sculptural piece through an encircling landscape of red brick walls.

The main installation in the showcase is a handcart laden with brick moulds and the many tools used by the workers.

“Moulds without a name are discarded as waste, then what of the labourers whose name was never inscribed?” reads an inscription on the work.

“While doing BFA in Banaras Hindu University, I got an opportunity to visit Mirzapur and interact with the migrant labourers in the brick kilns and see the process in depth. The memories of the toil and sweat of the workers, inhumane treatment, their exploitation and suffering took root in my installation here,” Yadav said.

His work is rooted in the lives of seasonal migrant workers employed in the brick kilns, many of whom are landless, bonded and trapped in “cycles of debt and extraction that pass quietly from one generation to the next”.

The artist has spent years observing not only how these workers live and work, but how their identities are shaped, and erased, by the systems they serve.

In one work, a bent bone-shaped sculpture with load of bricks tied at the two ends represents the shape a worker's back takes after years of labour, another shows pickaxes taking the shape of a ribcage, deformed and mutilated.

Reconstructed without spectacle or sentimentality, the installation “becomes an architecture of endurance”, describes one text at the exhibition.

The bricks are marked with palm impressions, traces of bodies on pillows sculpted from clay, and varying articles of everyday usage, including bottles, cloth bundles, tools, and clothes, as residual gestures of survival, recalling the hands that pressed, lifted, stacked, and burned clay day after day.

“They are reflections of my observation in the kilns which I have documented,” the 34-year-old said.

The 6th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which formally opened here on December 12, is running across 22 venues in Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Willingdon Island, and Ernakulam with 66 artists and collectives from more than 25 countries.

Curated by artist Nikhil Chopra and HH Art Spaces, the 110-day international contemporary art exhibition, showcasing a diverse programme of talks, performances, workshops, and film screenings, will come to an end on March 31, 2026. PTI MAH MAH BK BK